St. John's Zuriel Reyes goes up for a layup at Maize Tournament Saturday.

By Barry Ragan

June 17, 2013
6:50 p.m.

The St. John Tiger boys came out on top at the 1A and 2A, nine-team, Div. I Maize MAYB Tournament held at Maize High School last weekend. And they did it in style, especially on Sunday when they blew away the competition, defeating Stockton 53-37 in the semi's and the Sharon Springs Wildcats 84-36 in the finals.
In earlier games on Saturday the Tigers defeated Sharon Springs 62-54, and easily defeated the Hoxie Indians by over 30 points and the South Gray Rebels.
(Both Hoxie and Stockton made it to the Kansas State Tournament last March, with Hoxie going out in the first round and Stockton surprising everyone by making it to the second round.)
The Tigers went 5-0 as a team for the weekend. Their margin of victory averaged 22 points.
But what was truly amazing was the fact that All-Stater, 6'8” Dean Wade and 6'3” Trey Nelson weren't even there due to injury. But no matter. It was almost like like Déjà vu for the State 1A champion Tigers in the championship game, making 11 from long range and playing well overall as a team.
The teams participating were Hoxie, Sharon Springs, South Gray, Stockton, Spearville, Republic County, the Rebels(no school listed) Kiowa County and St. John.
The Tiger gals went 4-0 on Saturday defeating Madison 28-16, Attica 29-25, and easily defeated Valley Falls and Sedan.
Update: The St. John girls basketball team defeated South Barber in the semi's last Sunday and lost in the finals to State Champion Hoxie, thus taking home second place in the ten team 1A-2A MAYB tourney at Maize. Most of the teams there were using last year's seniors. St. John did not, plus were without the aid of Alexis Witt (out of town) and Haley Falk (due to injury). The Lady Tiger's record was 5-1 for the weekend.The teams competing in the girls tournament were Sedan, Madison, Valley Falls, Attica, St. John, Spearville, Hoxie, Ashland, Kiowa County and South Barber.
Next weekend won't be as easy when the Tiger boys travel to Kingman High School where they'll meet up with several larger schools, some in the 6A division. The teams entered are St. John, the Wichita Defenders, Pratt, Garden Plain, Derby, Lyons, Gossel, Haven, the Young Bloods, Kingman, Attica, Newton, Fairfield, Kiowa County and Hutchinson Trinity.
If that wasn't enough, the St. John Tigers Junior High eighth grade boys team will be in their own tournament playing against the Newton Railers, the Wichita Jags and the River City Thunder. All the games will be played at Kingman's Middle School that same weekend.
A more thorough article listing the accomplishments of the St. John High School girls and boys MAYB teams will be coming out in the paper in July.
For a list of all the MAYB Tournaments, the date they are played, where they are played, what schools are participating, who's playing who and times of the games, go to: http://www.mayb.com/tournaments/schedules/summer/MAYB tournaments are not associated with the KSHSAA or the teams home schools.